Not another one: Prince Andrew is awarded the highest possible honour for 'personal service' to the Queen

Prince Andrew is a man of many medals and today we can reveal the extent of Duke of York's collection of gongs.

It
comes as the Prince was honoured yet again this week, this time for
'personal service' to the Queen, despite the continuing row over his
close friendships with convicted paedophile and tyrannical foreign
regimes.

His mother
invested him with the insignia of a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal
Victorian Order at a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace before the
two took afternoon tea together.

It
is a wonder where the Prince will keep his seventh medal which senior royal
sources told the Daily Mail was offered as a 'thank you' at the time of
Andrew's 51st birthday last month for the support he has given his
mother for his work since 2001 as an unpaid UK trade ambassador.

It is certainly a special medal and will no doubt be cherished by the Duke. The RVO was founded by Queen Victoria in April 1896 as a way of rewarding personal service to the sovereign.

There
are five ascending levels within the order and the Queen has loyally
given her son the highest rank – that of Knight Grand Cross – which
allows him to use the letters GCVO after his name.

But the Prince is not short of medals - he has collected a glittering array over the years. Here we detail his other six.

The Duke of Ruritania and his many medals

1 Maltese Cross signifies a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian
Order, presented by the Queen in 2003 to mark 50th anniversary of
Coronation. Order has five ranks and this week he reached the highest —
the Knight Grand Cross, whose badge will replace this one.

2 Blue sash represents the Order of the Garter. In 2006 Duke appointed by
the Queen to be a Royal Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the
Garter, the oldest British Order of Chivalry, founded by Edward III in
1348.

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3 Medals on Andrew’s chest
are, from left: his South Atlantic Campaign Medal (Falklands War), the
Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal, the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal (given to
Royal Family and trusted members of her household), The Canadian
Decoration (awarded in 2001) and the New Zealand Commemoration Medal
(1990).

4 The Garter star,
worn pinned to the left breast. Introduced in the 17th century by
Charles I, it is a colourfully enamelled depiction of the heraldic
shield of St George’s Cross, encircled by the Garter, which is itself
encircled by an eight-point silver badge. Since the Garter is the senior
order of the UK, a member will wear its star above any others.

5 Underneath the Garter star is the star of a Knight Commander of the
Royal Victorian Order. This is an eight-point Maltese cross in white
enamel with gold edging and silver rays between each arm. In future,
however, he will wear the slightly different star of a Knight Grand
Cross.

6 Ornamental gold
braids are aiguillettes, awarded after his appointment in 1984 as
Personal Aide De Camp (ADC) to the Queen. It is a military rank of
senior assistant.

Why the Queen will ALWAYS back Andrew

By GEOFFREY LEVY and RICHARD KAY

No one could doubt the intensity of the maternal love involved when the Queen this week invested Prince Andrew with her highest personal honour.

In a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace, she presented him with the gold-embroidered insignia of a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, a mark of her gratitude for his service to the Crown.

This has been the most difficult of times for Prince Andrew, but it has probably been even worse for his mother.

Mummy's boy: Prince Andrew has had a difficult time lately but it has probably been even worse for his mother

Andrew is the Queen’s favourite son, and she has been deeply upset at the scale of the opprobrium cascading over him, in his role as Britain’s roving international trade ambassador, for his closeness to unpleasant and dubious billionaires, particularly to convicted American paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Over the past few weeks, there have been real fears that Andrew’s appalling behaviour has furthered the cause of republicanism — especially his grubby acceptance of £15,000 from Epstein and a reported £40,000 from billionaire businessman David ‘Spotty’ Rowland, who was once described as ‘shady’ in Parliament, to help his ex-wife the Duchess of York settle her debts.

For some, giving Andrew an honour at this time could be interpreted as blind maternal love betraying public duty. Yet to Buckingham Palace it was the perfect time to give Andrew a boost.

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Indeed, the Queen’s decision to go ahead with the award bears the classic hallmarks of Royal Family defiance: pulling up the drawbridge, ignoring the real world and carrying on as normal.

Ironically, it was the Queen herself, a decade ago, who enthusiastically allowed Andrew’s name to go forward for the trade post, replacing the Duke of Kent who, at 65, was standing down after 25 dignified and helpful years as an ambassador-at-large.

The year was 2001 and it neatly solved a problem for the Queen and Prince Philip who — like any parents — were worried that Andrew was leaving the Navy after 22 years with no obvious employment to take up.

Indeed, so concerned were they that the Queen — as indulgent as ever towards her second son — even allowed him to draw up plans for an exclusive golf club in the extensive grounds of Windsor Castle.

The Queen with Prince Andrew Albert Christian Edward in 1960

That extraordinary idea actually split the Royal Family, with Prince Charles leading the opposition. And eventually the plan was quietly dropped. In its place Andrew got the job promoting British trade.

And with it has come endless criticism and unease that ‘Air Miles Andy’ was blurring the line between his official and private lives and perhaps even using his official role to feather his own nest. But the Queen never faltered in her support of her wayward son.

‘Ever since Andrew was little the Queen has always gone out of her way to help him and give him the benefit of the doubt,’ explains a friend of long standing. ‘As a child he could do no wrong in her eyes. By common consent, it was very noticeable that Andrew was her favourite, and he still is.’

According to this family friend, the reason is the ‘second son syndrome’. As he says: ‘Andrew was the spare to Charles the heir, and the Queen has never stopped wanting to compensate by making sure that he doesn’t feel left out. It’s a mother’s instinct.’

Visitors to the Queen’s study in Buckingham Palace can hardly fail to notice a framed picture of Andrew, in his naval uniform, prominently placed on her desk.

‘Whenever she hears that Andrew is in Buckingham Palace she’ll send him a hand-written note and he always goes to see her,’ says a former aide. ‘If he’s in jeans he’ll change into a suit. And he always greets “Mummy” in the same way — bowing from the neck, kissing her hand and then kissing her on both cheeks. It’s a little ritual that she adores. Believe me, he can do no wrong.’

In fact, the Queen’s abiding image as a mother who had little time for her children is not entirely fair. This was the case only where Charles and Anne were concerned, when the new and awesome responsibilities of being Queen in those difficult post-war years almost overwhelmed her. But when Andrew was born in February 1960, they were aged 11 and nine, and by this time the Queen, then 34, was able to devote more time to being a mother.

Soon after Andrew’s birth the Queen wrote a touchingly personal letter to her cousin, Lady Mary Cambridge. ‘The baby is adorable,’ she wrote in the letter, which has just come up for auction. ‘All in all, he’s going to be terribly spoilt by all of us, I’m sure.’

To be fair, Andrew, on reaching adulthood, looked for some years as though he was going to make his parents — and the nation — exceptionally proud. His decision to follow Prince Philip — mentioned in World War II despatches — into the Royal Navy delighted his parents.

And the Prince’s bravery as a helicopter pilot aboard HMS Invincible
in the Falklands War, acting as a decoy for Argentine Exocet missiles,
is beyond question.

Who can forget how he came home one of the
Falklands’ many heroes, disembarking at Portsmouth with a rose between
his teeth? This was probably the Queen’s proudest moment as a mother,
for as a Royal Family friend explains: ‘The Queen views being on active
service as the ultimate form of service one can do for your country.
This sets him apart from her other children.’

Andrew is the one the Queen worries about the most, according to a senior aide

But Andrew’s naval career was never going to hit the heights. By the time he left the Navy aged 41, he held the rank of Commander and was then jobless. Hence the worrying problem: what could he do now? Crucially, on top of this, the Queen worried that her second son had no wife to come home to. His by then ex-wife Sarah had caused him immense hurt and embarrassment with her affairs and her spendthrift ways.

‘Put yourself in the Queen’s shoes,’ says a former senior aide. ‘Andrew is the one whom she has always worried about most. He wasn’t even the “spare” any more because of William and Harry. Charles was going to be King, Anne had her own life, and Edward was newly married to Sophie and blissfully happy.’

In the end the Queen was hugely relieved — and grateful — when that ubiquitous networker, the then Trade Secretary Peter Mandelson, came up with an idea that Prince Andrew could take over from his cousin Eddie (the Duke of Kent) as trade envoy.

The Queen holding Prince Andrew with Princess Anne looking on at Balmoral in 1960

The Prince took to the role with gusto, while continuing to live in the house that was built for him and Sarah by the Queen as a wedding present.

Sunninghill Park
in Windsor Great Park cost £5million in 1987 and had a marble-floored
hallway, 36ft master bedroom, a private cinema, 12 further bedrooms, a
billiard room, pool, stables and servants’ quarters.

When a guest of the Queen Mother
suggested that the house showed a complete lack of taste, the Royal
Family matriarch, knowing how protective her daughter was of Andrew,
observed sharply: ‘I don’t know how much architectural taste you would
have, if you spent your life at sea.’

Andrew and Fergie lived there as man and wife for a mere two years.
And painfully aware of how much unhappiness her son associated with the
house, the Queen raised no objection when he announced he intended to
sell her wedding gift.

The Queen Mother had recently died and the
Queen already had it in mind for Andrew to move into her mother’s
much-loved weekend home, Royal Lodge, also in Windsor Great Park.

What
is clear is that the more money he got for Sunninghill Park, the more
he would be able to spend on the changes he wanted to make at Royal
Lodge. In the end, he lavished £8.5million on improvements.

This
perhaps explains why, after five years of failing to sell the property,
Andrew demeaningly started hawking his mother’s wedding gift around on
trade missions in front of Arab Sheikhs and other potential buyers in
places like Bahrain.

Eventually he sold Sunninghill Park to a
rich Kazakh for £15million — £3 million more than the asking price and
almost twice as much as local estate agents thought it was actually
worth. Since then it has been left to rot.

Meanwhile at Royal Lodge, so gracious when the Queen Mother lived there, Prince Andrew has had a jet fighter ejector seat installed on a plinth in the hall, and enjoys warning visitors ‘don’t press the red button’.

Many wish the red button could be pushed to eject him from the trade role that is now causing international embarrassment. But not, it seems, the Queen. After all, she is his mother. As one courtier says: ‘She will always stand by him.’